LV HEALTH: Is Pennsylvania mostly landlines or wireless?

April 21, 2011|By Tim Darragh, The Morning Call

Wired up or wireless?

That's what researchers were investigating in a report released this week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Minnesota. Looking at data from 2007-2010, researchers develped estimates of state and selected city data on the prevalence of landline or wireless telephone use.

(It was considered a health issue because much of the data we get about our health -- including the data in this survey -- is gathered from telephone surveys. The increasing use of wireless phones has implications for researchers, as well as politicians and other surveyors. Most major surveyors now include wireless telephone numbers in their surveys, the study said, adding that best practices for conducting surveys of wireless users have yet to be developed.)

With that, the survey says: Pennsylvania is a still largely a landline state. With only 16.5 percent of households going wireless only, the Keystone state ranks 44th among states for wireless-only. The leader is Arkansas at 35.2 percent. The survey also showed that many households were moving toward wireless-only over the past few years, but Pennsylvanians were among the slowest to do so.

Pittsburgh and, to a lesser extent, Philadelphia, skewed Pennsylvania's report in favor of wireless. Take them out and here's how Pennsylvania comes out in the latest year of the survey: 15.1 percent of homes wireless only; 15.1 percent wireless mostly; 33.7 percent dual use; 24.8 percent landline mostly; 10.3 percent landline only.

Since the survey uses estimates, it also concluded that 1 lonely percent of households had no telephone service, which is lower than many other regions.